


Life Drawing, Mondays and Wednesdays, 8am - 10am

by ReyloTrashCompactor (NextToSomething)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Art School, Eye Contact, F/M, Fic Exchange, Gift Fic, Nude Modeling, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NextToSomething/pseuds/ReyloTrashCompactor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was not something Rey usually did. She didn’t usually go to parties, she didn’t usually strike up conversations with strikingly handsome men at said parties, and she didn’t usually kiss—passionately, repeatedly kiss—these men after only having known them for two hours or less. Her college classes haven’t even started yet, and she can already tell that this man that she knows only as Poe is going to be trouble. Better to get out while she has a chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Drawing, Mondays and Wednesdays, 8am - 10am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gr8_rach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8_rach/gifts).



> Written for rachel-greatest over on tumblr from the prompt: “I’m in an art class and you’re the model for today’s figure drawing.”
> 
> First ever Rey/Poe, so please be kind! I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think in the comments below! :)

This was not something Rey usually did. As a strong hand pressed deft fingers into the curve of the base of her spine, coaxing her to arch more firmly against the body of a boy, no,  _ man, _ she only knew as “Poe,” she couldn’t exactly pin down what “this” was even referring to. She didn’t usually go to parties, she didn’t usually strike up conversations with strikingly handsome men at said parties, and she didn’t usually kiss---passionately, repeatedly  _ kiss _ \---these men after only having known them for two hours or less.

But she was at a party, albeit far enough away from the action that the dance music was only a slight thrum through the door of this upstairs bathroom. She had found the courage to approach the strikingly handsome man named Poe after the barest splashes of rum into her red cup of Coke, noticing that he had dribbled the same tiny amount of alcohol into his own cup of soda. She thought that she would very much like to talk to someone who looked so  _ experienced _ and yet seemed to have the same pitiful tolerance for alcohol as she did.

And,  _ oh,  _ she was definitely kissing him, and he was definitely kissing her back. Her hips were crushed against the lip of the sink, her fingers were clutched in the coarse, heavy curls of The Man Named Poe, and he was holding her to him so achingly hard that she swore she could feel his heartbeat against her chest.

Maybe it was the simple fact of being in college---even though classes didn’t start until tomorrow---that pushed her to be so spontaneous. Isn’t going to parties and kissing seniors what college was all about?

_ Not remotely,  _ a sobering voice in the back of her mind quipped, and Rey found herself pulling away from Poe. He made a sound that landed somewhere between a groan and a pout, and those clever hands grasped hard just below her hips and lifted her to sit on the counter. She was taller than him now and he used this to his advantage, kissing along her neck and the underside of her jaw.

“I should get going,” she breathed, though the words did not match the warm rippling sensations tickling over her body. “I don’t want to be tired for my first day of classes.”

He laughed against her neck and the hot wash of his breath positively curled her toes. “God, you are such a freshman.”

She giggled. “Valedictorian of my high school, too.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.” He nipped at her neck.

“Poe---” she warned as he nuzzled against her pulse point. Would now be an appropriate time to ask for his last name? She knew his major---Military Science---and she knew that he had a secret cat in his dorm room named BB, but in their get-to-know-you-before-I-drag-you-to-the-upstairs-bathroom-to-make-out-with-you talk, his last name hadn’t come up.

Hers hadn’t, either, come to it.

Rey’s heart fluttered a little at the thought. Maybe she wouldn’t ask. Maybe she would let this night stand on its own, no last names and no attachments. When was she, an Illustration major, ever going to cross paths with a Military Science major again, especially at the country’s largest university?

“I really need to go. It’s late.”

Poe pulled away, though his hands stayed settled on her hips. “Yeah, okay.” His fingers flexed on her, and she thought of just hauling him against her again, her eight AM class be damned. But he pulled his hands from her and ran them through his hair, giving her a surprisingly shy smile.

_ God, he was pretty. Which was bad, very bad. _

“Give me your phone number,” he said as he pulled his mobile from his back pocket.

This startled her. “Um…”

“Rey...lastname. I’m sorry! I forgot to even ask for your last name!” He laughed again and took one hand from his mobile to offer in a shake. “I’m Poe Da---”

“Wait!” Rey said, grasping his outstretched hand with both of hers. “Let’s...let’s not.”

His happy smiled faded in favor of a look of confusion. “Let’s...not?”

“Why don’t we…” Rey hopped down from the counter, running her hands over her own pulled back hair, smoothing what flyaways had cropped up in their very thorough handling of each other. “Why don’t we leave it like this? Just---tonight. Just Poe and Rey. Isn’t that more exciting?”

She smiled widely at him, a move she knew worked wonders on her teachers and foster parents and admissions advisors and pretty much anyone she wanted to convince of something.

Poe didn’t seem to be buying it. “More exciting to not see you again? Not really.” He sounded more than a little put out, his phone still clutched in his hand. “I know I might have given you the wrong impression tonight, what with the making out and all, but I’m not that kind of girl,” he said with a stern set to his heavy brows, even though his words seemed to be meant to be funny. “I want to know your last name. I want to see you again.”

“Poe---” Rey started, but he cut her off with a sharp, precise kiss.

“And I think you want to see me again, too,” he murmured when he pulled away, an inch from her lips.

Heat flooded her face, seeming to pool in the hollows beneath her cheekbones. He was right, of course. But all of this was distracting. This party, his handsome face, those too knowing eyes. She hadn’t even started her classes yet, and already she could feel herself getting swept away, losing focus. Her first night on her own and she had followed her roommate to a party, had ended up perched on a bathroom sink with a very enigmatic man tickling desire along her neck. This boy, this man, with penetrating eyes and clever lips, was dangerous.

She never had control of much in her life, but she could control this.

She shook her head.

“Goodbye, Poe.”

* * *

Rey was still exhausted for her first class Monday morning,  _ Life Drawing, Mondays and Wednesdays, 8am - 10am _ , even though she had left for her dorm at a reasonable hour and went quickly to bed. Once there, she couldn’t settle. Though she had only known Poe for a few hours, he seemed genuinely hurt that she refused to leave him with her number.

It wasn't anything personal against  _ him…  _ okay, it was. She could tell, from that first minute of arguing over who was the superior artistic talent, Portishead or The XX (obviously, it was Portishead) that she really, really liked Poe. He was sweet and confident in a way that didn’t make Rey want to roll her eyes. He wanted to be an Ace fighter pilot for the Air Force, like his mom, and seriously, how endearing was that?

He seemed to take a keen interest in Rey’s major, when she talked about getting into illustration so she could create her own children’s books. He asked her about the classes she was taking, taking care to give her his full attention, leaning in when the dance music got too loud.

And later, a shy touch to her waist when he leaned in to hear her story about the frat boys stationed outside the freshman dorms, ready to help with moving in and how she had passed one of them in the hall carrying her comforter and pillows and, more embarrassingly, her childhood ragdoll, into her room for her. He laughed and she was utterly charmed. He hadn’t removed his hand from her waist.

But she was going to turn things around, now. Bouncing from foster home to foster home for the majority of her life had continuously forced her to put her livelihood and her future into the hands of strangers. Some were kind enough, some were manipulating the system for the money another mouth to feed could bring them, and some, a very small percentage, were wonderful enough to have Rey hope that this would be her forever home, that these people could be her forever family.

It never worked out that way, of course.

So, no getting sidetracked by a pretty boy first thing at college. No heartfelt backstories and meaningful talks that would only nurture the false hope of forever. She was far too jaded for any of that.

A boy sat down heavily in the seat beside her, even though the room was largely empty. He began setting up his large sketchpad against the provided easel, and Rey tried to resist the temptation to glimpse his work while he opened it. Such behavior was rampant in the art world, neighbors always peeking over the shoulders of others to see what they had drawn, and Rey hated finding herself guilty of such behavior as well.

“You can look if you want to,” he said when she purposefully averted her eyes. “It’s something you have to get used to around here. No secrets.”

She turned back to him, and he was smiling broadly.

“I’m Finn.”

She smiled back, finding it hard not to. Most art students that she had known had always worked so hard to seem aloof and interesting, being on the receiving end of such a warm smile from one of them was downright startling. “Hi. I’m Rey.”

“Hi, Rey. You bring your supplies today?”

“Um, yes?”

“Good.” Finn was unpacking a worn canvas scroll pencil case. “Maz likes to hit the ground running on the first day. No review of the syllabus or anything. ‘You don’t need a lesson plan, you just need practice.’”

Rey followed suit, setting up her sketchpad on the easel. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“No problem. You ever draw a live model before?”

Rey shook her head as she sat out her pencils. They weren’t the nicest of quality, but she took good care of her supplies and used them wisely. “No, not much of a chance of that in public school art classes.”

Finn nodded and reached across to adjust Rey’s easel so her sketchbook sat closer to her lap.

“Er, thanks…” Rey mumbled.

“It’s a different experience, to be sure. It’s okay to be embarrassed at first. Eventually you get used to it.”

Rey straightened her back at this and adjusted the easel herself, though Finn had set it to a very good angle. “I won’t get embarrassed. It’s just a naked body.”

The door slammed closed loudly behind them and a tiny woman with brown skin and no hair toddled---there was no other word for it---to the center of the room.

“My name is Maz and that is what you should call me. None of that ‘Professor Kanata’ nonsense.” She had a clear voice and her eyes were hugely magnified behind thick spectacles as she turned slowly to look each student in the face as she spoke. “There is no syllabus for my class. You don’t need a lesson plan; you need practice.”

Rey glanced to Finn and he winked.

“For anyone who assumed otherwise, there are extra supplies along that back wall.” A few sheepish looking students slowly stood and hurried over to where she indicated. “Don’t come unprepared to work again.”

Rey liked her. Maz seemed sharp but good, and those were qualities she liked in another person. She thought she was going to very much enjoy Life Drawing.

“Your model today is Poe. He was changing when I came in, so he should be in shortly.”

Rey’s heart skipped a beat.  _ Poe?  _ How common was that name? Common enough, she reasoned. There were over fifty thousand students at this university. It was likely that there were a great many Poes on campus.

A few hands were raised, and Maz waved them off. “No questions today. Today you just practice drawing. Draw first, ask questions later.”

Maz’s eyes met with someone behind her and she nodded before stepping out from the middle of the circle of easels.

Rey glanced behind her and the thudding of her heart doubled as she saw Poe,  _ her Poe _ , in a blue terrycloth bathrobe approaching the center of the floor. He hadn’t seemed to see her. She turned quickly back to her easel, a hot blush creeping out from the neck of her blouse.

“Let’s get limber with some thirty second poses, Poe,” Maz called from behind them.

“You got it, Maz.”

His back was to Rey when he dropped the robe, so she got a clear view of a very defined backside---he was very,  _ very _ in shape---before he grabbed the provided chair, turned it around, and plopped down into it.

Facing Rey.

He sat with great confidence, his forearms braced on the tops of his thighs and his thighs...spread. The smug look on his face as he looked directly as Rey from over the top of her sketchpad let her know that he had, in fact, seen her.

And she could see every single inch of him.

As the sounds of frantically scratching pencils filled the room, Finn reached across and wrote at the corner of her large sheet of paper:

**_I thought you said you wouldn’t get embarrassed._ **

Rey scribbled out Finn’s message with jerky strokes of her pencil.

Poe winked at her.

“Change,” Maz called, and Poe stood, propped a foot up on the chair, giving a very clear view of certain areas of his anatomy, pressed his hands into his back and arched his spine.

All while looking directly at Rey.

“Come on, kids, get going,” Maz said from across the room. She was moving slowly behind each easel, nodding but not correcting. “Thirty second poses are meant to get your joints loose and your mind working. Concentrate on lines rather than proportions right now. Get his shape, not his measurements.”

Rey tore her eyes from his and tried to shake of the feeling of the hot blush that seemed to reach all the way down to her toes. She concentrated on the paper and tried to copy down the lines of Poe’s---the model’s---body like Maz had directed.

“Change.”

Poe struck another pose, this one crouching, more folded. Still he looked unblinkingly at Rey.

She set her mouth in a hard line and tried her best to see past that to his body and the shape of it, willed herself to loosen up like these exercises were meant to do. Her sketches were craggy and lifeless, not at all like the crouching young man who practically radiated vitality.

“Change.”

Her next few sketches were all as hopeless as the ones before, and she really hoped that Finn wouldn’t return the favor from earlier and peek over at her work.

“Let’s settle into some five minute poses. New piece of paper; fresh start. We’re still looking for those lines, the story his shape is telling.”

The rest of the hour continued much the same, with longer and longer poses, giving time for more detailed and focused sketches as the students warmed up. Poe eventually turned away from Rey so as to give the rest of the class more variations on his poses, and she was finally able to really settle into her drawings.

Poe really was beautifully made. All tan skin and taut muscle, he was an excellent model for a class focused on the human form. She found herself giving special focus to his arms and the strength he held there, the powerful column of his neck, the dip at the base of his spine.

“You do much better when you stop trying to not really look at the model,” Maz murmured from over her shoulder. Rey hadn’t realized that she had come up behind her. “Once you let yourself see the life behind the body, you create very beautiful lines.”

Rey darted her eyes to the side to see Finn grinning at his sketchpad.

“Alright everyone, let’s take a quick break. Get up, walk around. Get ready to settle in for the hour-long pose.”

Poe had his back to her again as he slipped back on his discarded robe and she watched the flex of his back muscles as he pulled the thing over his shoulders. Finn cleared his throat behind her.

She whirled around to see Finn quirking a too knowing smirk in her direction.

“Don't be embarrassed,” Finn mock whispered, which carried like a shout. “Everyone likes Poe.”

Poe turned at the mention of his name, which spiked that frantic embarrassment through Rey's veins again. Poe gave that perfunctory jerk of the head most men seemed born with the ability to do to Finn, and Finn returned it just as easily. Poe’s head turned a few inches more, and he gave a smile to Rey that was also succinctly masculine, but in a way wholly different from the gesture he'd directed at Finn. This smile was appreciative, a slow curling of lips and the intensifying of gaze that drew reluctant desire out of its recipient. It held that primal pull imbued with eons of pheromonal chemistry, and her reaction to it was as textbook as the biology behind attraction.

Finn whistled. “And it looks like Poe likes  _ you. _ ”

Poe turned away again and began setting up the provided pallet and pillows for the hour-long pose. Rey exhaled for the first time in probably a full minute.  She pulled a large water bottle from her bag and took long, quenching gulps, all while studiously avoiding the teasing look Finn was leveling at her. Hoping for anything to pull her mind from the searing image of Poe’s body and the heat behind his eyes.

“Don’t go overboard, thirsty girl. You’ve got a whole hour before your next bathroom break,” Finn spoke through a laugh as he sat back down behind his easel.

“I’m fine,” Rey said as she put away the water bottle.

“That’s break, everyone,” Maz shouted from the other side of the classroom. She was placing a record on a decrepit looking turntable, and soon ambient music dosed with the textured scratch of an old needle wafted through the space. Maz prodded the student closest to the turntable sharply in the ribs, then indicated that he would be in charge of flipping the record when the time came. The boy gave a tight nod and looked worriedly at the ancient player.

Rey settled again in behind her easel, taking another few moments to organize her pencils. Avoiding looking up at Poe. Staring fixedly at the window of floor visible from the underside of her sketchpad.

Soon, the blue terrycloth robe was pooled on this square of floor, and Rey forced her eyes up.

Poe was reclined against the pillows he had arranged, a small space heater set on low near him to ward off the chill that comes from being still and bare for such a prolonged amount of time. He had one leg bent and an arm thrown up over his head to create more interesting angles with his body. His gaze was soft and sleepy and relaxed.

And fixed entirely, again, on Rey.

Finn cleared his throat again, but Rey ignored him. Instead, she set her jaw, rolled her shoulders, and looked decidedly right back at Poe. The soft strains of an old Eno album and the heat from Poe’s space heater, coupled with Poe’s easy stare and almost inviting posture was lulling her into something of a trance. He created a beautiful picture, sexual and warm, with his body, and she very much wanted to capture it on paper.

The night before fell away from her, as did her panic from seeing him again when she thought herself safe. The flirtatious wink and Finn’s teasing was all a staticky background noise as she set her pencil to the paper and drew.

She wanted to capture that air of welcome his body projected, as if he had just pulled back the sheets on a sleep warmed bed, persuading his lover to join him again, letting the day start without them. Rey paid special attention to how the pillows shaped his body, and how his body shaped the pillows right back, that utter relaxation she didn’t know how he found while naked in a room full of strangers. Shading those places where his body met pallet, the creases in his elbows, the lazy loll of this bent leg. Once she had the shape of him down, his dips and hollows and swells, she could vaguely hear the nervous boy from earlier flipping the record.

Halfway, then.

Rey set to capturing Poe, then, and not just his tempting posture. She wanted to detail his humanity. The dark scattering of hair below his navel, and what that path led to. Her face warmed at this, at concentrating for however briefly on his more intimate details, and she could swear she felt him smiling at her, though she refused to look.

When she did, she saw his look was changed, less sleepy, more interested. More tempting than even before. She concentrated on those eyes, fathomless and large and ringed by heavy lashes and heavier brows. Much more penetrating than a man in his early twenties had business wielding. That soft mouth set over a strong jaw. Rey remembered what it was like to be kissed by that mouth, and tried to infuse that tender sensuality into the lines of his lips.

The song was devolving, and she could tell that the album was nearing its end, so she turned her attention to that broad forehead and the dark coil of hair above it. She loved that hair, loved the feel of it---coarse but slick. Hair that could stand a good yank from time to time. She wasn’t sure how to translate that quality with just graphite, but she attempted all the same. When she heard the faint  _ tup-tup-tup  _ of a needle skipping at the end of a record, she set her pencil to his eyes for one more moment. Brought her own eyes back to his for one last long, studying look. He was shameless in how deeply he looked at her, and she used it. Bringing the lids a bit further down, infusing that sleepy coaxing stare in with the interest and steadfastness that she found truly hypnotic.

“How does everyone feel?” Maz asked as people began to stir around them. Rey looked away first, though it took some effort, and she tried not to be painfully aware of his movements from the corner of her eye.

“Shit, Rey,” Finn said as he glanced over at her work. “At least buy a guy dinner before you go baring his soul like that.” He was gesturing at her Poe’s eyes, and she flushed at the realization of the acute detail they held.

“Lovely work, Rey,” Maz said from somewhere near her shoulder. Rey turned with a start, again not realizing the woman had snuck up on her. “Though I’ll ask you to focus more on the model’s form from here forward. You’ve captured a very specific mood here, but you need to concentrate on giving this same amount of detail---” she indicated at his eyes, “---as you do everywhere else.”

“Yeah,” Rey breathed. “Okay.” If she was honest, she was feeling a bit lightheaded, and only vaguely nodded as Maz drifted away to comment on other students’ work.

“May I see?” His voice was soft behind her, and she whirled to face him. Poe was standing daringly close to her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of this breath and smell the hard edge of male sweat. His eyes drifted to her mouth and she wet her lips, so taken by his proximity and the thrall of their hour-long staring contest that she was quite sure that if he leaned in to kiss her, she would let him. He backed away an inch, however, and his eyes darted over her shoulder again to her easel.

“Oh, yes! Yes, you can look,” she said, her voice more breathy than she would have liked.

He settled a hand on her waist and he leaned forward and past her to look. Her breath hitched at the familiar contact and she found herself leaning into his touch.

“Wow,” he said, sounding breathy himself. “Was I really looking at you like that? I’m sorry.”

She could feel her cheeks color, but she didn’t hesitate when she said, “Don’t apologize. It was very...stirring.” She looked down at the floor and smiled softly at his still bare feet. “I like drawing you.”

He touched her arm, and she looked back up at him. “Do you have class after this? Can I buy you a coffee?”

His look was hopeful and earnest, and Rey decided she liked his eyes best of all. Liked all the emotions that flashed through them. Liked the truths they told. “Of course.”

He smiled, huge and endearingly honest in his relief at her acceptance. “Groovy. Let me get dressed.”

Rey laughed.

* * *

Poe directed them to a small coffee shop attached to the school’s library and placed Rey’s order for a flat white with soy (“Lactose intolerant.”) his own for a chocolate chip frappuccino (“Taste of coffee intolerant.”) before leading them to a tall cafe table by the wall, his hand settled purposefully at the small of her back. This small gesture sent a thrill through Rey, and she knew that something had changed between them during that last hour. Poe had told her a great many secrets as he lay there on that pallet, and she felt suddenly compelled to tell him some of her own.

As she opened her mouth to do just that, the barista called out, “Poe Dameron? Poe, last name Dameron? Mr. Dameron? Dameron comma Poe?”

Poe smiled broadly again before sending Rey another wink and going to retrieve their order.

“Do they always make such a big deal out of your last name here?” Rey asked with a small laugh when he returned with their drinks.

“Yeah,” he answered. “It’s so weird, I can’t get them to stop. It’s ‘Dameron, this’ and ‘Poe Dameron, that’ here.”

Rey pulled off the lid to her coffee and gave it a small blow. “I’m sure.”

Poe was markedly silent, and Rey decided to finish her thought from earlier before he’d served up “Dameron” on a silver platter.

“Smith. My last name is Smith,” she said.

Poe barked a short laugh. “Smith? All that fuss over ‘Smith?’ I honestly thought you were a Rockefeller or something with the way you were going on.”

Rey shook her head. “Ha. No, no. Me? I’m no one.”

He stopped laughing at that. “Now don’t say that---”

“No, I mean it,” she continued. She tried to keep her tone light, though her words were heavy. “Smith...Smith is the name they give to babies abandoned at hospitals. I really am, literally, no one.”

Poe was silent for a moment, and Rey was glad to see that the pity that usually came with this revelation was absent from those honest eyes. How many people, how many friends had she told this story to? They all thought it terribly sad, tragic, worth a comforting touch. But Rey knew nothing else. She hated that pity and sadness, because it was her story, whole and truthful. It wasn’t  _ their _ story but sadder and without a few key main characters. She didn’t like people feeling sorry for her when this was all she knew. Some people’s stories didn’t start with parents, and that was okay, too.

“And ‘Rey?’”

She breathed a small sigh of relief at his simple question. “‘Rey’ is the name of the doctor who found me.”

Poe didn’t speak, but he also didn’t look like he didn’t know what to say, either. Rather, he seemed content to drink his ice cream and listen to what Rey might say next. Looked willing to wait all day for her next sentence. It made her want to talk, want to tell him, rather than feeling obligated to talk to ease his discomfort, or to shut up completely to alleviate that discomfort altogether.

“I’m still in contact with him, actually. Dr. Rey. He set up a scholarship fund for abandoned babies shortly after he found me. Still runs it today. Paid for my books this semester.” She swirled a finger through the fine foam of her coffee, licked her finger, looked up to meet his eyes.

He only smiled pleasantly.

“Your next question would be my accent,” she supplied.

“Would it?” he asked, his voice light and tinged with humor.

She nodded. “It usually is.” She took a sip of her coffee and grinned into her cup. She’d be coming back here, for sure. “I was with my first foster family for a long time. Until I was eight. They were English.”

She left unsaid why she wasn’t with them still, how it was possible for a child to spend almost ten years with a family and still not be adopted in the end. What trouble came with being in The System and how if you weren’t adopted by eight, you were likely never to be adopted.

This threw a dark cast on her mood, and the good coffee and better company began to tarnish because of it. “I should get going.”

“Can I have your number?” Poe asked. He settled his hand over hers on the table, a small but powerful gesture to keep her from running.

“Look, Poe---”

“Rey,” he cut in. “I have a feeling you have been run out on in the past. Or that you feel like attachment equals hurt.”

She looked away but he continued.

“I’m not making some grand gesture to promise to stick around and be that something different in your life. I’ve only kissed you within an inch of your life and you’ve drawn me naked in, frankly, pretty terrifying detail. We hardly know each other.”

Rey laughed and looked back to him. Saw those eyes that couldn’t abide a lie, even if his mouth said something untrue. He wasn’t.

“But I want your number, to start. I want to keep making you blush in Life Drawing. I want to try to stick around, if you’ll let me?” He squeezed her hand, and took a deafening slurp from his drink, breaking the moment and her unease.

She laughed again at this, at him, at how he made her feel. At how often he could make her laugh and feel that startling lightness tingling in the tips of her fingers and itching at the arches of her feet. At this ridiculous and beautiful man drinking a child’s drink in a coffee shop and looking decidedly unnatural fully clothed and upright.

“It’s the first day of my freshman year of college. I can’t seriously fall for the first guy I meet.”

Poe raised his eyebrows in mock challenge. “Why don’t you give me your number, Rey Smith, and we’ll see how that goes?”

She bit her lip and his eyes followed the motion. Narrowed in a way that shot heat through her belly. She could already see how this was going to go, and his frank gaze confirmed it.

“Okay,” she said in a half embarrassed whisper. “Let me see if I can find a pencil.”

This time, Poe Dameron laughed.


End file.
